SOP Syndrome
by BlackCavern
Summary: Now that the war's over, we have to pick up the pieces. But us Drebins, our troubles are over.


**Disclaimer**: I do not own MGS

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Now that the AIs are shut down the burden Patriots are finally off of my back and the backs of all the other Drebins.

Too bad it's not all fun and games, now that the nanomachines are offline. I've got other troubles, like alcohol. I have to actually pay attention to my getting drunk, too bad, the nanos were like miniscule care takers, they took care of your every need.

They keep your liver happy when you're drinking

If you're hurting they release endorphins

If you panic they forcibly calm you down

You gotta love those nanos even if you end up getting controlled by Screaming Mantis. But nanomachines are just like the drugs and alcohol they regulate, they hold back everything you don't like and once they're gone, you feel all the bad stuff all at once.

Heh, I guess I could just stick to soda.

But nanos are for war, for soldiers and the war has dried up. Not the best of news for me, after all, war was what put food on my table. Strange, freedom doesn't taste as sweet as I thought it would, I blame the soda for that too.

I often wonder to myself, what would've I ended up doing if the Patriots didn't let me go into the gun laundering business. Well, given the circumstances of my childhood, I'd probably be dead. Thrown on to a dusty road side, there's something wrong with this world when nobody gives a dead child a second glance. But then again, so would the White Devil he hadn't been stuck in that relief center.

The Patriots ordered me to help out Philanthropy, I obeyed, but by the end of all this mess, I ended up having my own ideas. I suppose I can give up the black market for some free will, after all, us Drebins practically have the gun business in the palm of our hands. I ain't no La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo.

It's kinda sad, how many people are pawns of the Patriots without even knowing it. Like that Rat Patrol 01, if they kept on the way things were going, they'd soon find themselves fighting Snake. Pawns the whole time, played like a violin. The Patriots only ordered me to help Snake so he can get rid of Liquid Ocelot. And in the end they got taken down by a little girl's worm cluster, bet they didn't see that coming. I wonder if the Rat Patrol is suffering from SOP syndrome.

I guess I should hate the Patriots as much as some of the other guys. After all, they killed my parents, my siblings and shoved me into the Lord's Resistance Armies. I guess it doesn't matter any more though, who would believe that I was a child soldier?

But now that the Patriots are gone, there's going to be a lot of cleaning up to do. Hopefully the United Nation would piece everything together. Not that I care, like I said: I have no interest in the outside world.

Even now sitting in my Strykler, just the sight of a gun sparks my interest. In fact I've got a nice wall full of suvoniers from this war. The same wall where I posted all those snap shots of the B and B unit. As promised Snake gave me Raging Raven's grenade launcher and the first thing I did was make a pretty shelf for it and place it on my wall. The others are mostly junk that I got from Shadow Moses, just picked them up and stamped them on the bulliten board. It's a little habit of mine, there's always some superb gun filled with years of rage in every war, the perfect collector's item. I still have some old Cold War relics that I found.

Sometimes I just zone out and the next thing I know I'm tampering with the ID system on some AK-74.

But I'm doing pretty good compared to some other people. Those poor old PMCs, now that the nanomachines are shut down, those poor slobs are virtually naked. They got not protection from their own feelings or ailments, and that SOP syndrome. Getting rid of the Patriots won't solve all the problems out right, we gotta work at picking up the pieces. Kinda like a Rubix cube, the fall of the La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo just mixed up all those little colorful squares. We just have to find a way to get it back the way it was when you first bought it from that toy store.

Life's gonna be a lot harder now that there's nothing regulating our lives. Presidents now have to make an effort to get elected, and politics will become a whole lot more interesting. The hidden world that the Patriots created has been crushed underfoot and buried in a deep hole.

It ain't all sunshine and rainbows, everything has to be torn down and rebuilt. The PMCs will have to give way to volunteer country militaries. And I don't even want to think about what problems might arise regarding nukes. But I personally bet that we won't have to worry about old people shooting nukes from an Arsenal Gear style warship with a rail gun mounted on top.

Oh well, I think I'll just sit back and watch it all unravel. Us Drebins, our troubles are pretty much over.

Hm...I think I'll dismantle that grenade launcher.


End file.
